Posted on 02/10/2013 7:10:13 AM PST by Uncle Chip
A report commissioned by Joe Paterno's family calls the July 2012 Freeh report that was accepted by Penn State trustees before unprecedented sanctions were levied by the NCAA against the school's football program a "total failure" that is "full of fallacies, unsupported personal opinions, false allegations and biased assertions."
The Paterno family report, which targets nearly every conclusion and assertion the Freeh report made about Paterno in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal, states that while former FBI director Louis J. Freeh has had an honorable past and good reputation, his investigation -- especially as it relates to Paterno -- relied on "rank speculation," "innuendo" and "subjective opinions" when it concluded that Paterno concealed facts about Sandusky in part to avoid bad publicity.
Freeh was hired on Nov. 21, 2011 and paid $6.5 million by Penn State University trustees --
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The Paterno family immediately roundly and loudly rejected the report, and, four days after its release, instructed its lawyer to form a "group of experts" to conduct a comprehensive review of the facts and conclusions. The Paterno family asked its attorney's law firm, King and Spalding of Washington, D.C., to start "a comprehensive review of the report and Joe Paterno's conduct. They authorized us to engage the preeminent experts in their field and to obtain their independent analyses."
The law firm hired former U.S. attorney general Richard Thornburgh, former FBI supervisory special agent and former state prosecutor James Clemente, and Dr. Fred Berlin, a treating physician, psychiatrist, psychologist and expert in sexual disorders and pedophilia at The Johns Hopkins Hospital and School of Medicine. The family's report attacks Freeh's conclusions, assertions, methodology, investigative abilities and choices, disclosures and independence.
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(Excerpt) Read more at espn.go.com ...
“But Curley later said in an email that he changed his mind “after giving it more thought and talking it over with Joe.””
That’s really the bottom line. Freeh took that to mean Joe told him to cover it up, but the email never said Joe expressed any advice of the sort. It is based on the conclusion Freeh wanted - and you, apparently.
<>It is true.<>
No it is not:
“Joe Paterno requested that he be interviewed by Freeh before his death. He wanted to be on the record. But obviously that was the last thing Freeh wanted....”
http://www.tominpaine.blogspot.com/2012/08/why-freeh-didnt-interview-paterno.html
Why Freeh didn’t interview Paterno, McQueary, Schultz and Curley.
smh Just wow.
“We all instinctively know what happened here based on the facts we already have”
“Instinctively???”
Right.
Post the facts. Let’s see how well you “instinctively” know things.
The fact of the matter is that McQuerie told Paterno about the shower room rape he personally witnessed, and Paterno at best then did the bare minimum of what he was required to do by law, and at worst, participated in Spanier's "humane" cover-up to protect Sandusky.
I agree, Lancey. Freeh got paid big bucks (6.5 million) to make somebody happy. The Paterno family has every right to fight back. I’m glad they are. This whole thing stinks to high heaven. As far as I can tell the only winners in all this are Freeh and the NCAA thugs who are pocketing 60 million bucks in fines.
Let's get it right.
He said: "With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more".
So I ask you:
With the benefit of hindsight, do you wish you had done more???
Hmmmm????
Thornburgh was one of 4 experts who investigated.
You should review who they are and their qualifications before generalizing with inuendos. They are people of immense qualifications, reputation, position and expertise.
As for Thornburgh, he has a lifetime of integrity and expertise, including Attorney General of the US under Reagan.
Thornburgh: http://paterno.com/Expert-Bios/Dick-Thornburgh.aspx
Sollers: http://paterno.com/Expert-Bios/Wick-Sollers.aspx
Clemente: http://paterno.com/Expert-Bios/Jim-Clemente.aspx
Dr. Berlin: http://paterno.com/Expert-Bios/Dr-Fred-S-Berlin.aspx
... but of course, if your mind is already made up, this will not matter to you.
So your instincts are your guide. That's frightening --
Expert analysis shows that while signs of Jerry Sandusky’s child molestation existed with the benefit of hindsight, at the time of the 2001 shower incident reported by graduate assistant Mike McQueary, information was conveyed to Joe Paterno in terms that were too general and vague for him to disregard decades of contrary experience with Sandusky and to conclude that Sandusky was a child predator. As summarized in former FBI profiler Jim Clemente’s own words:
“Given my 30 years of education, training and experience working, evaluating and assessing child sex crimes investigations around the world, it is my expert opinion that Paterno did not know, or even believe in the possibility, that Sandusky was capable of sexually assaulting boys. At worst, he believed that Sandusky was a touchy-feely guy who had boundary issues. This fact is clear from his repeated statements before he died.”
“[Paterno] did what he believed was reasonable and necessary to address the situation based on his understanding of the facts, and his position at the time. Paterno did what most people who cared about children would have done in the same situation. More than a decade later, and in hindsight, Paterno showed his concern for the victims when he stated he, ‘wished [he] had done more.’”“Paterno, like everyone else who knew Sandusky, simply fell victim to effective ‘grooming.’ [Grooming is a dynamic process of seemingly innocent, positive public behaviors by the offender, aimed at gaining the trust of the targeted child, parents and the community.] As an expert behavioral analyst and based on my review of the evidence, Paterno did not believe that the information he received from McQueary amounted to Sandusky being a predatory child sex offender.”
http://paterno.com/Overview/Page-3.aspx
A sentence just as likely to be uttered by the Brady Campaign in the aftermath of a school shooting. Having said that, IMO here's the crucial portion of today's release:
Sollers writes. "They ascribe motives to people they never met or interviewed and interpret ambiguous documents with a clarity and decisiveness that is impossible to justify."
We're talking about a report that served as the sole foundation for punitive action against a university and devaluation of an estate. Would you tend to agree that these types of actions can / should be taken on what we "instinctively know", or should the bar be set a bit higher than that?
And what of Freeh's motivation? If he starts turning out reports that claim there isn't a factual basis to establish any definitive conclusions, what's the likelihood that his next client will pay $6.5M to commission a report? I view his motivation as no different from that of climate change scientists - if they say "we're not sure" the gravy train will grind to a halt. There's an inherent investment in sensationalizing the subject matter.
That’s your source? Pathetic.
“Former athletic director Tim Curley and former Penn State vice president Gary Schultz both face perjury charges for failing to report suspected child abuse. Both declined to be interviewed for the Freeh Report on the advice of counsel.”
Lie and spin all you want. JoePa’s legacy is written in stone.
Where does it say in there that Joe Paterno refused an interview with Freeh??????
I wonder what Penn State University’s response will be in light of this new report. If the Paterno cultists are correct, the University should cease implementing the recommendations in the Freeh report.
I don’t know why we bother. They are cultist like you said. No different then the “Free Mumia” crowd.
Perhaps you should re-read the last line of your post to me (#42).
Mumia cultists. Interesting comparison.
That also went down in Pennsylvania iirc.
Coincidence? Maybe not.
Ok, but you asked for it.
Joe Paterno had a member of his staff (McQueary) come to him on Saturday, February 10, 2001 and tell him that he witnessed a former member of his staff (Sandusky) in the football team's showers, naked, standing behind a boy he estimated to be 10 or 12 years old (also naked) with his hands wrapped around the boy's waist. He said the boy was facing a wall, with his hands on it. And that "it was very clear that it looked like there was intercourse going on" (A grand jury made up of every day normal Americans later correctly summarized McQueary's testimony as saying he "saw a naked boy ... with his hands up against the wall, being subjected to anal intercourse by a naked Sandusky.").
Joe Paterno's response to this was (after slumping back in his chair) to tell McQueary "I’m sorry you had to see that. It’s terrible. I need to think and tell some people about what you saw..." And in Paterno's own words "I knew some kind of inappropriate action was being taken by Jerry Sandusky with a youngster...".
Now having a 2nd accusation against Sandusky (and information including the 1998 accusation of molesting two young boys in the same football showers, Sandusky's subsequent retirement & unusual retirement/compensation package allowing him to remain on campus and use it's facilities) Paterno did not contact the "appropriate" legal authorities. Instead he went to the same Campus staff that afforded Sandusky emeritus status retirement after the first accusation. Compounding that error, after seeing that Sandusky was still not going to be held accountable for actions that Paterno himself said were inapproriate, he chose not to go to the "appropriate" legal authorities. And as a result, Sandusky's abuse was allowed to continue for 7 more years until a victim came forward and did tell the "appropriate" legal authorities.
Those are the facts. They can be spun 20 different ways but they cannot be changed/disregarded/ignored. They are not taken from either report. They are from official court testimony (which carries a hell of a lot more weight than the Paterno Family funded investigation).
;)
Watching the Paterno apologists on here is like watching Obama supporters. Their threatened egos drive them to flights from commonsense. As a result, they defend horrible things that have allowed horrible people to prosper.
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